


Scream It from the Top of Your Lungs

by comefeedtherainn



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Fluff, M/M, just...fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 04:36:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8130628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comefeedtherainn/pseuds/comefeedtherainn
Summary: Dick Simmons loves Dexter Grif. Dexter Grif loves Dick Simmons. They're both more show-not-tell kinds of people. Snapshots in time in which Grif and Simmons show that they love each other.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics: Alone Together by Fall Out Boy

_I don’t know where you’re going_

_But do you got room for one more troubled soul?_

 

_I don’t know where I’m going_

_But I don’t think I’m coming home._

 

“Simmons. Your hair looks like shit.”

Dick Simmons paused in the middle of calibrating his robotic arm to raise an eyebrow at Grif, too taken aback by the statement to be annoyed for once. He glanced over his shoulder at the other soldier, seated on the edge of the bed with Grif stretched out on his back behind him. “What? No it doesn’t.”

“Does too. You look like ginger Tarzan,” Grif snorted, eying him with his arms folded behind his head. 

“Well excuse me, it’s a bit hard to find a barber in the middle of a goddamn canyon,” Simmons snipped, sticking his nose in the air and turning away from his...person he slept next to sometimes. And sometimes made out with. And had sex with. Not boyfriend though, that’s dumb.

The bed creaked as Grif pushed himself into a sitting position, bringing up his legs to plant his feet on the mattress and resting his back against the wall instead. “I’ll cut it,” he suggested casually, shrugging one shoulder.  

Simmons glanced over his shoulder again, a bit more alarmed and voice much more squeaky. “I am not letting you near my head with a pair of scissors, Dexter Grif!”

Grif rolled his eyes dramatically, his head even moving with them. “Chill the fuck out, _Richard Simmons_. I cut my own all the time, and I cut Kai’s a few times when she used to get gum stuck in it when we were younger. Couldn’t afford to get it done anywhere legit.”

“Oh. Kai was bullied?” Simmons asked, cocking his head in confusion.

“No. She just always used to fall asleep with gum in her mouth.”

“...Right. That makes more sense.”

Grif ignored the jab at his sister’s intelligence in favor of pressing the issue. “So? You gonna let me clean you up or what?”

Simmons let out a long-suffering breath, setting aside his tiny tools and turning around to face him. “Alright. Fine. But if I come out of this looking like I lost a fight with a lawnmower I’m kicking your ass.”

“Noted.” Grif hauled himself to his feet, his footsteps a comforting, heavy padding on the concrete floor. Simmons liked the sound of them; knowing that Grif was around even without being able to see him was almost as soothing as being underneath a fuzzy blanket while rain pattered on the windows. He came back to reality when Grif approached him with the shears, a spray bottle filled with water, and a comb. “Jesus Christ, I swear I saw you brush it this morning, how is it knotted again?”

“Have you not heard? Everything I do is in an effort to piss you off,” Simmons said snarkily, smirking a bit as Grif snorted in amusement. They both knew that it was because Simmons twirled his hair around his fingers when he was anxious or concentrating, balling it up and creating huge knots, but neither said anything.

“Funny, smartass. Sit still, and let me know if this hurts.” Simmons closed his eyes briefly when Grif’s thick, warm hand rested on top of his head, resisting the urge to smile. It got even harder to control when Grif started combing through the tangles in his hair more gently than he might have imagined him capable of if he hadn’t been sleeping with the man for quite a while.

He became less content when he was suddenly met with a freezing spritz of water right in his face. He yelped in surprise and opened his eyes to glare at Grif, who was snickering with a wide grin. “You fucking suck,” Simmons snapped, snatching the spray bottle out of his hand and spraying him relentlessly.

“Gah, fuck, okay! Enough!” Grif cried, though he still couldn’t fight the grin as he yanked the bottle out of Simmons’ hands. “Don’t waste the water, Wash will have an actual aneurism.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong, so Simmons just wiped his face with his sleeve and tried to look dignified as he sat straight again. “Just cut it short, okay? Like I had it in Blood Gulch.”

“Can do. Though if I start having waking nightmares about that place I’ll blame you,” Grif snorted, proceeding to spritz Simmon’s hair until it was damp and then give it another quick comb through.

“...I was gonna say it wasn’t that bad, but uh...it was.”

They both laughed quietly before Simmons went still again, closing his eyes as Grif pulled the first piece of his hair taught and snipped it away carefully. Simmons let out a long breath through his nose, his chest releasing as he enjoyed the sound of the scissors slicing through his hair. He started to get a bit hypnotized by it a few minutes in, though he was distracted when he heard Grif laughing quietly. “What’s so funny?” he asked, peering through one eye.

“You like the sound of the scissors,” Grif told him simply, glancing down at him with an amused look. “Remind me to show you some videos on the internet next time we’ve got signal.”

“‘Okay.” Even if it did end up just being an excuse for Grif to look up porn, they’d watched that together a couple of times and he couldn’t say he’d mind doing it again. He took another breath and went back to listening to the soft snips, taking the time to notice how warm Grif’s fingers were as they curled around his chin to turn his head whichever way he needed. He kissed them without thinking after the third time, and grinned as Grif nudged him under his chin with one of his knuckles. “Sorry. I’ll let you work.”

“I ain’t complaining.”  He didn’t say anything else, though, and Simmons appreciated how hard he seemed to be concentrating on what he was doing. He liked feeling like he was important to somebody, especially somebody as apathetic as Grif could be. He wished he could feel like it worked the other way around, too, but he didn’t think Dexter Grif had ever needed anyone in his life.

***

_My heart is like a stallion_

_They love it more when it’s broken_

 

“I am fucking sick of this shit!”

“I know,” Simmons said, following Grif into their room on base in Armonia.

“It’s like, what the fuck do I have to do for him to treat me like a goddamn human being?!” Grif ranted, thankfully tossing his helmet onto the bed rather than the floor or the wall. “Surpassing him in rank is out of the goddamn question, ohhhh no! He needs to be at least one step ahead of me or his senile old brain will spontaneously fucking combust!”

“Grif...you’re spitting.”

“Isn’t that what you’re supposed to want?! For your subordinates to be better than you are?! Do you know what I would do if Bitters got promoted to a higher rank than me?” Grif asked, whirling on Simmons with wild eyes.

“Well, probably throw a party because then you wouldn’t have to do all the work anymore,” Simmons reasoned, shrugging and meeting Grif’s seething rage calmly.

“You are damn fucking skippy, Dick! I would throw a goddamn parade! But what does Sarge do? Has a goddamn existential crisis because he still can’t get over the fact that he got assigned to our unit in the first place because he fucking _sucks_ at his job! Holy _fuck_!”

“Okay,” Simmons said at normal speaking volume, placing his hands on both of Grif’s shoulders and stilling his rampage of the tiny room. “You’ve got every right to be pissed, but you are gonna break something I like if I let you continue like this.”

“Yeah, you’re really fucking funny,” Grif snapped, though he didn’t make any move to shrug Simmons’ hands away. “I fucking hate him.”

“Okay,” Simmons said again, not wanting to try and convince him otherwise when he had a pretty legitimate reason to be upset. “Let’s just sit down, okay? We’ve still got that wine Donut gave us for our ‘anniversary’.”

“Jesus. We don’t even have an anniversary, I hardly know what day it is half the time,” Grif scoffed, allowing Simmons to sit him down on the bed. His chest was still heaving a bit though, and his fists hadn’t released. “What would it be the anniversary of, anyway? The day you let me get you naked?”

Simmons rolled his eyes as he bent over to retrieve the unopened bottle from the cupboard in his beside table. “You’re truly a romantic, Dex,” he said dryly, fishing around for the wine bottle opener Donut had thoughtfully included with his gift.

“Hell yeah I am. Want me to whisper some Hawaiian in your ear?”

“You don’t speak Hawaiian.”

“We could pretend.”

“Shut up and drink,” Simmons ordered with a smirk, glad to see that Grif was already chilling out a bit just from the banter. He took a seat on the bed beside him, letting the silence sit between them comfortably as they passed the bottle back and forth.

“Thanks,” Grif muttered after a while, eyes on the floor. “Sometimes it’s just...a bit more fucking annoying than others.”

“I get it,” Simmons said with a small smile. Boy, did he get it. “He does act like a dick to you. But I think he just does it because he wants you to try harder.”

“Well I am, and he’s just getting fucking worse,” Grif huffed, taking a health swig of wine. “It’s not cool.”

“I know.” Simmons rubbed between Grif’s shoulder blades soothingly, something he would have never dreamed of doing when they first met but now felt natural. “It’s better to be mad anyway, you can use it to do even better and shove it in his face later.”

Grif snorted softly, turning to raise an eyebrow at him amusedly. “That sounds a lot like insubordination, soldier. What would Sarge say?”

“I honestly don’t give a shit.”

***

_I’m outside the door, invite me in_

_So we can go back and play pretend_

 

Simmons grimaced as he walked gingerly around his room, trying to get ready for bed while accommodating the bandaged bullet wound in his side. He’d been released from the hospital wing only after promising Dr. Grey he wouldn’t participate in any strenuous activity until she had cleared him for it. It wasn’t a hard compromise to come to, especially when she’d been aiming the scalpel in her hand in his general direction.

He looked up sharply as tapping on his door startled him. It was pretty late at night; showering had taken him forever with his need to keep his bandages dry. He walked stiffly over to open the door, somehow surprised when he found Grif on the other side. “Oh. Hey,” he greeted quietly. “I thought you must be asleep already. I didn’t want to bother you.”

“No. The uh...bed's too big,” Grif admitted, almost under his breath and avoiding Simmons’ eyes. Simmons nodded quietly in understanding and opened the door wider, letting him inside. “How’s that doing?” Grif asked gruffly, pointing at the bandages covering Simmons’ bare torso.

“Okay,” Simmons said while pulling a face. “Hurts a bit still to walk. But it’s fine.”

“Hm.”

They were both silent for a few moments, and Simmons could swear he could hear the bullets raining down around them again as Grif propped him up against a wall and sealed his pouring wound with biofoam. _“You’ll be fine. You’re fine. For fuck’s sake, Simmons, don’t close your eyes.”_

“That was pretty close,” Simmons commented casually.

“Don’t-” Grif began, facial expression tightening briefly before smoothing out again as he sighed heavily. “Let’s just go the fuck to sleep, okay?”

Simmons nodded quietly, grimacing and having to limp over to the bed as his wound had been overworked for the night. Grif’s brow knitted worriedly and he reached out to grab Simmons’ hand, offering him something to support himself on as he lowered himself down onto the mattress. “Son of a bitch,” the redhead wheezed, taking a few deep breaths as the pain subsided once he was lying on his back. “This sucks.”

“Mhm.”

Grif’s hum was quiet, almost like he was barely listening, as he crossed to the other side of the bed and crawled on as carefully as possible so as not to jostle the other man. He stretched out as closely as he dared, and  Simmons eventually huffed and grabbed one of Grif’s beefy arms and draped it across his own chest. “Cuddle me, bitch.”

Grif’s laughter was soft puffs of air on Simmons’ freckled shoulder, making the taller man smile slightly. It was quiet for a few more minutes as Grif rubbed his thumb over Simmons’ protruding collar bones. “I love you,” he eventually said, sounding a little awkward but genuine. “I mean...just, thought you might go and I hadn’t said it enough times. So. Yeah. I do.”

Simmons took a deep breath in through his nose, and let it out slowly through his mouth. “Yeah. I know, Dex,” he assured him softly, turning his head to kiss the mop of black hair on top of Grif’s head. “Love you too. Fucking sap.”  


 

_Let’s be alone together._

_We could stay young forever._

_We’ll stay young, young, young._


End file.
